


Last stop at the end of the world

by ber_g



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, M/M, Post-Episode: s14e20 Moriah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 10:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ber_g/pseuds/ber_g
Summary: As first kisses go it's almost good.





	Last stop at the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended to be longer and more of a speculative season 15 fic but, well, life got away from me and the premiere is tomorrow (!!!) so I'm posting the chunk that I liked now as an extremely belated coda to s14e20. I kind of can't believe it's almost the beginning of the end, I've been in this fandom on-and-off for ten years now. Cheers to all the memories and people that make it a blast - lets have fun in the end, yeah?

It starts in the graveyard.

Back to back to back, iron spikes sticky with dead blood, they're clinging to the lifeboat but just barely. Too many zombies for three people to fight off forever, no clear direction to break through the horde, and out of nowhere Cas's grace floods back into him. Sam is still blinking sunspots out of his eyes when Cas slams his spike into the ground and, wheat on a scythe, the zombies all fall. 

The lights fade back until it's just the three of them standing. Cas is still limned with blue, breathing hard, and Dean's ankle is bent at an unnatural angle and Sam can feel himself listing heavily but can't, actually, do anything to stop it. Dean drops his spike with a belated, muted thump onto the grass. He looks around them, at the dead zombies, at Jack's wings silhouetted on the ground, at Cas trembling. At Sam. Opens his mouth like he thinks he's gonna speak. Thinks better of it. Turns and kisses Sam.

As first kisses go it's almost good. He's all adrenaline and anger for a split second, fists Sam's collar and yanks him down so their noses collide, but he softens immediately, opens his mouth against Sam's and just breaths him in. Sam, for his part, holds himself paralytic still until Dean's hand scrapes through the hair at the back of his neck, thumb brushes over the side of his throat, and then he just collapses into it. Lets Dean hold him up, do the breathing for the both of them.

Sam could - yeah, he's pretty sure he could stay here forever, in this thing he never really thought he wanted but now that it's happening seems shockingly obvious. Dean's mouth hot and slow against his, slumping against each other, and a cold hand lands on his shoulder and makes him pull back with a startled groan, eyes dragging open.

Cas still flickers with heavenly light and Sam shudders, suddenly freezing even under his jacket. The sharp sting where he caught a glancing blow on his shoulder fades, and though he’s still tired his muscles ache less. Dean breathes out heavily against his shoulder, holds himself there a moment and then pushes off and leans his weight experimentally on his ankle before straightening fully.

“Thanks, man.” Carefully doesn’t look at Sam, bruised and wide-eyed. Castiel nods and tilts his head back, looks up. His jaw is streaked with dirt. The graveyard feels too quiet now that the chaos of the fight has been pulled out of it, no wind to move the trees or the blood-clotted grass. The stars blink oddly above them - Sam wonders for a second if he just took a blow to the head and rattled his brain around in his skull, but no, those constellations are shifting and moving as they watch.

“I have to go.” He drops his eyes to look at Cas, who’s holding it together with string and scraps of grace, barely keeping himself contained in his vessel. It’s been a long time since Sam’s seen him this panicked. He nods, and Dean grunts “yeah” and in a flap of noise Cas is gone and it’s just the two of them leaning on each other in a field of corpses. 

Dean sucks in a breath, kicks his spike back past a toppled headstone beside a torn open grave, and heads for the car, keeping his hand fisted in the back of Sam’s jacket the whole time. Sam goes, stumbles a couple times and tries not to think about the fact that it’s rotting limbs he’s tripping over. Some groundskeeper is going to find this place in the morning, all these bodies torn up from their eternal slumber, and probably go into cardiac arrest on the spot. They stop by Jack and Sam kneels down, brushes aside the sooty feather imprints to tug the slight, gangly frame into his arms. He’s not cold but getting there, limbs loose and awful and face smelling like a goddamn barbecue when Sam tucks his head against his shoulder to keep it from lolling on his neck.

They tuck him into the back of the car and collapse into the front seat, folding like scraps of paper. Dean slumps back and stares at the dented roof of the car. Sam stares at Dean. 

“Where do we go now?” Sam finally gets out, forcing words over the dry cracked desert of his throat. Dean’s eyes don’t leave the roof but his shoulders shift a little in a movement it takes a few seconds for Sam to parse as a shrug.

“Don’t think there’s a handbook. Find somewhere to bunker down, wait for morning to see how bad it is. Wait for Cas to get back.” He forces himself up, promethean effort, and turns the key. The car rumbles to life around them like she always does.

It's late. They drive back to the bunker and find it a smoking crater in the ground, one last trick from Chuck before his vanishing act, so they climb back into the Impala dry-eyed and just drive. Sam watches Dean, bloodshot and coiled in the driver's seat, and suggests a motel when they pass a marker for one. Dean nodded, eyes still fixed on the reflection of the median in the sharp line of their headlights, but skips the exit and pulls them in at a truck stop a quarter mile past it with a busted streetlight.

They wade out into the dark edge of the woods, far enough the highway can't hear them, and build a pile of sticks and damp wood. Sam hauls Jack's body back up into his arms, cradles him against his chest like he really is as small as a child his age should be, and lays him in the nest they've made, wraps an old shirt around him for want of a shroud. Dean's pouring accelerant around the base of the pyre in halting movements and Sam just watches until the whole thing burns down to embers, and then heads back to the car. Dean follows.

He climbs over into the backseat, grunting when he knocks his knee into the floor. They're both too big for this to be at all comfortable but Sam just stretches out as best he can, parallel and opposite of his brother, and lets the familiar smell of the car lull him to quiet.

"Dean?"

"Mmff." Still awake then. 

"In the graveyard earlier." Cicadas rattle outside, breeze pushing the leaves above them in a trembling rhythm. "Dean. It's alright, okay?" An olive branch, up for interpretation. The silence stretches long enough he thinks Dean might've just fallen asleep before he speaks again.

"Night, Sammy," and the creaking of leather as he shifts to face away, press his cheek against the backseat. Sam falls asleep like that, lying on his back with his feet wedged against the door and Dean quiet and snoring and close enough he could touch, if he knew where it would lead.

The next morning Dean bangs on the passenger door and wakes Sam up with crappy gas station coffee, a bruised banana, and a manic look in his eye. “C’mon, kid, rise and shine, up and at ‘em.” Sam groans and pushes himself up on his elbows, squinting into the watery sunlight. 

“Did you - did you _walk_ for that?” 

“Couldn’t wait around until your lazy ass woke up and I got energy to burn. Come on, sleeping beauty, gimme my seat back. We gotta hit the road.” He’s grinning, cajoling, but there’s a tightness around his eyes, a nervous clench in his jaw. Sam wonders if he’d notice anything was wrong if they hadn’t lived out of each other’s pockets for so long. He reaches up, knocks the back of his hand into Dean’s arm and it knocks something loose in him - his smile relaxes, and his hand twitches back towards Sam’s. Their fingers lock for a half a second. They’ll figure it out. 

“Jesus. Yeah, okay, gimme that.” He swipes the coffee, drops the banana on the dashboard and rubs his eyes. Dean crashes into the driver’s seat, thumps his elbow into Sam’s and turns them back out onto the road.


End file.
